


Not a Decoration

by glorious_clio



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6462532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_clio/pseuds/glorious_clio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I rewrote a few scenes of Return of the Jedi because I wanted to see if it could work without the bikini. Spoiler alert: they didn't need the bikini.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Decoration

“I gotta get you out of here.” Leia pulled a weakened Han Solo to his feet.

She could suddenly hear laughter, a gleeful, sinister cackle, filling her with dread. Before she had a moment to react, Han did.  

“What's that? I know that laugh.”

The curtain on the far side of the alcove opened, revealing Jabba the Hutt, surrounded by his fawning entourage. He laughed again, and his gross cronies joined him.

Han turned to face him, still shivering, still blind, still being propped up by Leia. 

“Hey, Jabba. Look, Jabba, I was just on my way to pay you back, but I got a little sidetracked. It's not my fault.” Han stuttered, his bravado missing the mark.  

Jabba laughed, delighted.  _ “It's too late for that, Solo. You may have been a good smuggler, but now you're Bantha fodder.” _

“Look...”

“ _ Take them away! _ ” Jabba commanded. 

The guards grabbed Han and Leia, leading them away.

Han was growing desperate now. “Jabba... I'll pay you triple! You're throwing away a fortune here. Don't be a fool!”

He was fighting blindly as they were being dragged off.  

Leia said only, “We have powerful friends. You're gonna regret this.” She regarded him coldly, refusing to fight just now.

“ _ I'm sure. _ ” Jabba replied. 

“Ohhh, I can't bear to watch.” C-3PO worried from his station.

\---

The heavy metal door of the dungeon whined as the guards cranked it open. A guard tossed Han in, roughly pulled Leia out of her outer armor and checked her for any weaponry, then threw her in after Han. The door slammed shut behind them, leaving only a thin sliver of light from a crack in the door. Han was trying to collect himself and Leia was picking herself up off the floor when suddenly a growl came from the far side of the cell. Han jumped back against the cell door, nearly crushing Leia. They listened.  

“Chewie?” Leia tried carefully.

“Chewie? Chewie, is that you?” Han was nothing short of frantic.  She rested her hand on his elbow. 

The shadowy figure let out a joyful growl and raced toward Han, lifting him off the ground with a big hug.

Letting out a breath, Leia leaned up against the wall and watched their reunion. 

“Wait. I can't see, pal. What's goin' on?”

Chewie barked an excited blue streak.

“Luke? Luke's crazy. He can't even take care of himself, much less rescue anybody.”

Chewie barked a reply.

“A...Jedi Knight? I--I'm out of it for a little while, everybody gets delusions of grandeur.”

Chewie growled insistently. He held Han to his chest and patted his head.

“I'm all right, pal. I'm all right.” He reached out his arm. “Where’s Leia?”

“I’m here,” she replied, reaching out to grab his hand.  

He pulled her into the fuzzy embrace.  It was warm and comforting and she could hear Han’s heartbeat for the first time in months.  

“Anything new?” he asked.

“Same shit, different cell,” Leia replied.  

“No kidding,” Han replied.  

The three of them end up curled up in the corner.  Chewie was asleep, his snores rumbling through both of them. Han was tucked up next to him; Leia was practically in Han’s lap.  He still couldn’t see, but he seemed content to take stock of her, running his hands over her arms, legs, torso, taking inventory, making sure she was all there.  She was still wearing the black under armor and even in the basement cell, it was itchy and hot and her sleeves were rolled up. 

Leia leaned forward and kissed his cheek.  “Welcome back.”

“Thanks.”

 

\----

 

Leia was startled awake by sudden loud roars, bangs, screams, and a general cacophony of noise that seemed to signal to her the Luke was here.

“Finally,” she muttered.

“What’s going on?” Han asked, but then the guards came and dragged them into the light before she could respond.  

“Han! Leia! Chewie!” Luke shouted

“Luke!”

“Are you alright?” Luke sounded worried, and guilty, as if he was personally responsible for Han’s six months of hibernation.  

“Fine.” Leia answered.

“Together again, huh?” Han asked. 

“Wouldn't miss it,” Luke shot back.

“How are we doing?” asked Han. 

“The same as always,” replied Luke.

“That bad, huh?” Han had to have the last word. 

“Just like old times,” Leia gritted out. 

C-3PO cleared his throat (or approximated the sound), and the four turned to face Jabba for the first time.  

“Oh, dear. His High Exaltedness, the great Jabba the Hutt, has decreed that you are to be terminated immediately.”

“Good, I hate long waits,” Han said, keyed for a fight despite the loss of his vision. 

C-3PO continued translating for Jabba.  “You will therefore be taken to the Dune Sea and cast into the pit of Carkoon, the nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc.”

“Doesn't sound so bad,” Han muttered.  

Leia felt Luke tense, despite having planned for this. 

“In his belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering, as you are slowly digested over a thousand years.”

It was Han’s turn to tense up. “On second thought, let's pass on that, huh?”

Chewie barked his agreement and Leia almost laughed.  

“You should have bargained, Jabba. That's the last mistake you'll ever make,” Luke threatened, mirroring Leia’s iciness from yesterday.  

Jabba cackled at this. 

 

\---

 

Jabba's huge sail barge moved above the desert surface accompanied by two smaller skiffs, one of which carried Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie, all in bonds, surrounded by guards, one of whom was a disguised Lando.

“I think my eyes are getting better. Instead of a big dark blur, I see a big light blur,” Han said, sounding a little hopeful. 

“There's nothing to see. I used to live here, you know,” Luke replied.

“You're gonna die here, you know. Convenient.”

“How is that convenient?” Leia asked conversationally.  

“Ya know. If someone would want to know about Luke, or something. This is where he lived, this is where he dies, that sort of thing. Visit his grave,” Han reasoned. 

“And who’s going to visit our graves?” Leia asked.  “I mean, mine, maybe. No offense.” She tried to joke, but it probably came out a little harsher than she intended.  She was trying to focus all her energy on executing Luke’s plan.  And maybe Jabba.... 

“None taken, your highness,” Han joked back. 

“Just stick close to Chewie and Lando. We've taken care of everything,” Luke said.

“Oh... great!”

Leia elbowed him. 

Luke and Leia stood slightly in front of Han and Chewie. Even though they were considerably shorter, dressed as they were all in black, Leia’s hair braided and out of her face, they looked fierce and battle ready.  The guards were glad that the pair were unarmed and bound, but even still, there was definitely a feeling of restlessness on the skiff.  

Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, though, were images of deathly calm, honed and ready for a fight ahead.

The guards shifted uncomfortably.  Leia reached up both her hands, ostensibly to brush back a loose curl, and slipped a hairpin into her hands.  

 

\---

 

Threepio wandered among the sail barge aliens and bumped into a smaller droid serving drinks, spilling them all over the place. The stubby droid let out an angry series of beeps and whistles.

“Oh, I'm terribly sor... R2! What are you doing here?”

R2-D2 beeped a quick reply.

“Well, I can see you're serving drinks, but this place is dangerous. They're going to execute Master Luke and, if we're not careful, us too!”

R2 whistled a singsong response.

“Hmm.  I wish I had your confidence.”

 

\---

 

The convoy moved up over a huge sand pit. The sail barge stopped to one side of the depression. But the prisoner's skiff moved out directly over the center and hovered. At the bottom of the deep cone of sand was a repulsive, mucous-lined hole, surrounded by thousands of needle-sharp teeth. This was the Sarlacc, a monster that haunted the nightmare of every child (and adult) on Tatooine. A plank extended from the edge of the prisoner's skiff. Two guards released Luke's bonds and shoved him out onto the plank above the Sarlacc's mouth.

Jabba was by the rail, watching. C-3PO leaned forward and the slobbering villain mumbled something to him. C-3PO’s voice is amplified across loudspeakers.

“Victims of the almighty Sarlacc: His Excellency hopes that you will die honorably. But should any of you wish to beg for mercy, the great Jabba the Hutt will now listen to your pleas.”

Han steps forward arrogantly and begins to speak. “‘3PO, you tell that slimy piece of... worm-ridden filth he'll get no such pleasure from us. Right?”

Chewie growled his agreement.

“Jabba! This is your last chance. Free us or die,” Luke threatened.

Leia managed to surreptitiously remove her binders. Lando moved unobtrusively along the skiff as Luke shot a quick look of conspiracy to him.

The assembled gangsters rocked with mocking laughter as R2 zipped unnoticed up the ramp to the upper deck. Jabba's laughter subsided as he spoke into the comlink. “ _ Move him into position. _ ”

R2 appeared from below and zipped over to the rail facing the pit. Below, in the skiff, Luke was prodded by a guard to the edge of the plank over the gaping Sarlacc. Luke looked up at R2, gave a jaunty salute: the signal the little droid had been waiting for. A flap opens in R2's domed head.

Jabba demanded impatiently, “ _ Put him in. _ ”

Luke was prodded and he jumped off the plank to the cheers of the bloodthirsty spectators. But, before anyone could even perceive what was happening, he spun around and grabbed the end of the plank by his fingertips. The plank bent wildly from his weight and catapulted him skyward. In midair he did a complete flip and dropped down on the end of the plank in the same spot he just vacated. He casually extended an open palm and his lightsaber, which R2 had sent arcing toward him, dropped into his hand.

Without hesitating, Luke ignited it and the green was a beacon of hope in Leia’s breast. He was a showoff, but she couldn’t fault him for the effectiveness. Leia wrestled a blaster away from a guard and pushed him into the pit.  Meanwhile, Luke attacked the guard who prodded him off the plank, sending the hapless monster screaming overboard. The other guards swarmed toward Leia, Han and Chewie. Luke waded into the fight, lightsaber flashing, watching Leia’s back. Lando struggled with another guard at the back of the skiff.

Jabba watched this, exploding in rage. He barked commands, and the guards around him rush off to do his bidding.

Luke knocked another guard off the skiff and into the waiting mouth of the Sarlacc, while Leia untied Chewie's bonds, having already freed Han. “Easy, Chewie,” she said.  

At that moment, the deck gunmen on the barge unleashed a series of blasts from a big cannon on the upper deck. Lando was tossed from the deck of the rocking skiff. He managed to grab a rope, and dangled desperately above the Sarlacc pit.

“Whoa! Whoa! Help!”

With two swift strides, Boba Fett ignited his rocket pack, leapt into the air, and flew from the barge down to the skiff. Boba landed on the skiff and started to aim his laser gun at Luke. But before Boba could fire, the young Jedi spun on him, lightsaber sweeping, and hacked the bounty hunter's gun in half.

Immediately, the skiff took another direct hit from the barge's deck gun. Shards of skiff deck flew. Chewie, Han, and Leia were thrown against the rail.

“Chewie, you okay? Where is he?” Han asked, desperately.

Chewie was wounded and he howled in pain.

“We’re okay, Chewie,” Leia said.

Luke was distracted by his friends, and in that moment, Boba fires a cable out of his armored sleeve. Instantly, Luke was wrapped in a strong cable, his arms pinned against his side, his sword arm free only from the wrist down.  Luke bent his wrist so the lightsaber points straight  up to reach the wire lasso and cut through. Luke shrugged away the cable and stood free.  Leia fired her blaster at Boba Fett’s neck and it cut through the weakest part of his armor.  His body collapsed on the deck.

“Han! Chewie? Leia?!” Lando screamed

“Lando!” Han rallied into action. 

The second skiff, loaded with guards firing their weapons, moved in on the prisoner’s skiff. Leia and Luke leapt toward the invaders. The guards didn’t stand a chance. Leia fought her way to the controls and steered them towards Jabba’s sail barge, firing up whenever she got a clear shot.  She slammed into the barge and began climbing, leaving Luke to handle the rest of the guards on the skiff.  She would catch up with Luke on the deck.  

Entering the party barge's main cabin, she dismantled the power, cutting the lights, and made her way inside.

In the darkness, Leia zeroed in on Jabba the Hutt, her emotions were strangely calm and she was razor focused on her mission at hand.  She heard stories from Luke, stories that he no doubt cleaned up for her, but what she told him, of the barbarity of this planet under his control, filled Leia with rage. She knew what it meant to rule a planet, better than this gangster.  

In the chaos, he didn't notice her silent approach, but she caught his attention when she leveled her blaster at him.

“Beings aren’t decorations, Jabba.”

He opened his disgusting mouth and she shot him between the eyes.  

His tongue lolled out and she turned to R2.  

“Come on, we have to get out of here.”

R2 and C-3PO followed her to the deck.  Even C-3PO was silent and she cut their way free.

 

\---

 

Luke continued to destroy the aliens on the guards' skiff, Leia was blasting her way through the barge, as Han extended his spear downward to Lando, who was still dangling precariously from a rope on the prisoner's skiff.

“Lando, grab it!”

“Lower it!”

“I'm trying!”

A major hit from the barge deck gun knocked the skiff on its side.  Han and almost everything else on board, including the lifeless body of Boba Fett, slid overboard. The rope broke, and Lando fell to the side of the Sarlacc pit. Luckily, Han's foot caught on the skiff railing and he dangled above Lando and the pit. The wounded Wookiee held onto the skiff for dear life as another hit from the deck gun rocked the skiff violently.

“Whoa! Whoa! Grab me, Chewie! I'm slipping!”

Chewie grabbed hold of Han's feet, holding him upside down, as Han extended the spear toward Lando, who was clutching at the side of the pit.

“Grab it! L--Lando. Grab!”

Meanwhile, Luke has finished off the last guard on the second skiff. He noticed the deck gun blasting away at his helpless companions and Luke leapt from the skiff, on the sheer metallic side of the sail barge. Barely able to get a fingerhold, he began a painful climb up the hull, when suddenly an ax smashed through a window an inch from his head. Luke grasped the wrist holding the ax and yanked the helpless guard through the broken window and into the deadly pit. He had to hurry to meet Leia on the deck. 

The injured Chewie reached over the rail for the dangling Han, who in turn was blindly reaching down toward the desperate Lando. For his part, Lando had stopped slipping down the sandy slope of the Sarlacc pit by lying very still. But every time he tried to reach for Han, the loose sand moved him closer to his final reward.

“Grab it! Almost... You almost got it!”

Another blast hit the front of the tilted skiff, causing Lando to let go of the spear Han was trying to reach him with.

“Hold it! Whoa!”

Again Han extended the spear toward Lando.

“Gently now. All... all right. Now easy, easy. Hold me, Chewie.”

Lando screamed. One of the Sarlacc's tentacles wrapped tightly around his ankle, dragging him down the side of the pit.

“Chewie! Chewie, give me the gun. Don't move, Lando.”

“No, wait! I thought you were blind!”

“It's all right. Trust me. Don't move.”

“All right! A little higher! Just a little higher!”

Han adjusted his aim as Lando lowered his head, and Han fired, managing to hit the tentacle which released immediately. 

“Chewie, Pull us up!”

The deck gunners still had the skiff in their sights when something up on deck commanded their attention: Leia, with a deadly look in her eyes, Luke rushing up on the other side of the deck. 

She shot one, but the other managed to fire off a few shots, which were expertly blocked by Luke’s lightsaber before she took out the other gunner. 

Luke turned to see two more gunners uncovering a giant gun at the end of the barge, one of the gunners shot at him.  Luke warded off the laser blasts with his lightsaber.  He and Leia were fighting back to back, Leia sinking laser shots, Luke trying to block them.

“I pointed the gun at the deck, set a timer” Leia bit out.  “We have about sixty seconds.” 

A laser blast hit Luke's mechanical hand and he bent over in pain, but managed to swing his lightsaber upward and take out the last of the guards. He looked at the wounded hand, accessing the damage. He flexed the hand; it still worked.

Near the rail of the upper deck, R2 and C-3PO steadied themselves as C-3PO got ready to jump. R2 beeped wildly.

“R2, where are we going? I couldn't possibly jump.”

R2D2 butted the golden droid over the edge and rolled off himself, tumbling toward the sand.

Luke and Leia rushed to the side and grabbed hold on to one of the rigging ropes from the mast. 

“Now this is like old times,” Luke tells her.  

The gun exploded into the deck as Luke and Leia swung out toward the skiff, her laughing at Luke and the thrill of living through another battle, surviving for another day. Han was leaning, panting against the rail as Chewie helped Lando onto the deck. Luke and Leia landed on the skiff with flair.

“Let's go! And don't forget the droids,” Luke said.

“We're on our way.” Lando replied.

C-3PO's legs were sticking straight up from the dune where he landed. Next to it, R2's periscope was the only thing above the sand. The skiff floated above them and two large electromagnets dangled down to collect them. The little skiff skipped around the burning sail barge, which continued its chain of explosions. As the skiff sailed off across the desert, the barge settled to the sand and disappeared in one final blast.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the stilted-ness of this. I pretty much copied the exact script that I found online, changed it all to past tense, and removed anything I didn't like. So the bikini. I also gave Leia more dialogue. I don't write a lot of action, but this was cathartic. Hope you liked it!


End file.
